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Buddha Head Sculpture

A Mystic Buddhist Image

​Objects made from Stone Jade Metal Wood and other

These fine sculptures (sometimes broken) are made from stone, wood, jade, metal; they are casted from bronze, brass, concrete, from brick construction and precious stones. If ancient and in good conditions the objects can have a high value, they usually are from Thailand, Cambodia, India, Japan, China and Myanmar or Burma.

Today it’s not easy anymore to find good ones, most have been stolen / looted but a good new one and / or replicas could be a good solution, some very special are made from marble or jade and other materials, often the head is just a fragment of a bigger statues although not always. Lots of broken stone around, a very peculiar one is the Buddha in the tree a rather strange sculpture. Here are attractive Buddha Statues with different sizes and colors for sale for even reasonable prices.

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Images of Buddha Heads

Photos of damaged sculptures

E.g. when the old Burmese conquered Ayutthaya and destroyed the city many statues had been smashed. Old pieces in various conditions in this ancient Siamese Capital show of this atrocities and are not the only ones.

Artwork from different countries have different styles, the face is almost always with similarities to the local population. Broken Stone Head Sculpture and the style of statues clothing and presentation expresses from whence comes the statue. A good place to study this is Bagan Myanmar or Sukhothai & Ayutthaya in Thailand

Some history about where they came from

The earliest of the great kingdoms brought into existence in response to Indian ideas is usually called by the name under which it was recorded by Chinese historians “Fou Nan”. Its center was the area of Cochin China to the south-west of the Mekong delta ; it probably extended its sway over long stretches of the coast of the Gulf of Siam and Ayutthaya, even as far as southern Burma and into Indonesia as well.

The population and culture represented a combination of Dong-son and Indonesian types with the Mon-Khmer civilization of the Cambodian plain. Certainly the culture and art, sculptures, statues, relief and more were regarded by the Khmers as an early phase of their own evolution, and artistic traditions were undoubtedly continuous.

Broken Buddha Head Statues

BuddhaPhotos

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The sculptures and heads to the left were pictured in an antique shop and the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Since countless artifacts were looted after the French started when they were the colonial power there the locals wanted to have some left and moved most Buddha statues into the National Museum.

But there are only a couple of them on exhibition large quantities are somewhere in store. Actually lots of these precious items are still in galleries and antique shops in Bangkok.

The geographical situation was ideal for the foundation of a trade-based kingdom. It lay on the natural focus of land- and sea-routes linking eastern India, southern China, and the Western world beyond. It was a kind of halfway house for ships and was at the centre of a region supplying many articles, especially forest and mineral products, eagerly sought by the Indian traders for their Western clients.

In early times its population was probably the largest on the coast of the Gulf of Siam with Ayutthaya in the back, and its land the best cultivated. Many small items and fragments of stone heads have been found which give a key to the character of the trade and the kingdom's mercantile position.

Among them are Indian jewels of gold, some amulets of tin, and gems carved with small scenes of Indian inspiration. Roman objects include a gold medal of Antoninus Pius, a coin of Marcus Aurelius, and gems. From China had come a Han bronze mirror and Wei Buddhist images. There are even a few Ptolemaic Egyptian and Sassanian Persian objects.

The kingdom of Fou Nan

It occurs in an account written by members of a Chinese embassy in the mid-third century AD. In context with a head tower at Angkor Thom. This records the local legend of its foundation, a similar legend to the one recorded of the foundation of the kingdoms of Champa and Angkor, and common enough in India too. A Brahmin, inspired by a dream, landed in Fou Nan, and married the daughter of a local serpent-deity. The Brahmin became the first king. The serpent-deity, or Naga, is a familiar Indian representative of local native royalty. This Naga himself then drank the floodwaters and enabled the people to cultivate the fields.

The facts behind the legend are not hard to decipher. Archaeology has revealed traces of an elaborate system of 20 anent canals, designed with extreme subtlety so as at the same time to control the Mekong floods, to irrigate a huge area of rice paddies and to prevent the incursion of the sea when the river's flow was slack.

Such elaborate waterworks were an Indian forte, upon which the wealth of Indian kingdoms and empires had long been founded. The cities were laid out on the canals, and boats could actually sail into them. The cities too were Indian in conception, with moated fortifications like many great Indian cities known to archaeology.

Some modern style Thai Buddha Heads

Photos

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Where do the heads come from?

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It is clearly visible what vandals did in the past with the statues and unfortunately lunatic Islamist still do this today because of ideological madness. Actually the top alone can more easy be transported they just cut them off and took them away as trophy, this started with the colonial french in Cambodia . The pictures were taken at one of the main Thai style sculpture from the museum monastery temples at Ayutthaya and in Cambodia.

Since their houses and warehouses were built on piles many images just disappeared naturally. Contemporary Chinese accounts refer to the splendor of the buildings, made of wood, carved, painted and gilt.

But nothing of this splendor has survived the tropical climate save a few fragmentary piles. There are a few traces of buildings made of more permanent materials, but these again suggest Indian prototypes, and were probably religious sanctuaries. Other sources were Buddha bodies without head destroyed by Islam marauders.

Bronze Buddha Head

Photos

There are plenty of Khmer bronze sculptures in the Phnom Penh National Museum plus other made from stone. They are not in very good conditions although the museum should be visited when on a trip to Cambodia. It's real cultural heritage many sculptures were moved to here from Angkok to stop looting such as the damaged head sculpture at right.